Apoptosis
by Urianger
Summary: I received my get out of jail free card and I was no longer dead. I thought a second chance meant walking the earth anew and you know, not getting thrown into a video game. But here I am, baseball bat in one hand and responsibilities I'm trying to avoid in the other.


**AN: Hello everyone. The remake trailer gave me inspiration to write a FFVII story :D I hope you enjoy. Reviews are welcomed (: What I really enjoy about many Crisis Core era fics on this site is that they switch around the plot but keep it canon. In mine, Zack will meet Cloud and Aerith before Genesis and Angeal defect.  
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 ** _Apoptosis_**

 _In order for me to grow as a person, I had to die._

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When one died, there was supposed to be darkness and finality. The end of the line, so to speak. Once you died, your life was over and your story had ended. Except someone decided that my life was not going to be over after the car collided with me. There was no warning, no woman in white, nothing. All I remembered was closing my eyes as Mya Brown and waking up as Nora Thorne. I expected fields of green and skies of blue. I wanted an angel with the voice of Whitney Houston to greet me at the gates of Heaven with a promise of eternal happiness. I needed peace because I was well, dead. But that wasn't what I received and I was this close to knocking down whoever-was-in-charge's door and giving them a piece of my mind. Because I was not given Paradise, instead I was tossed into the Slums. When my heart stopped, I ended up in the world of Final Fantasy VII. I guess you could say this new life was my get out of jail free card. With jail equaling death. It was nice and all that I was given a new chance at life but I would have preferred to be back on Earth. I often thought about my death and the man that placed me in this predicament. It usually ended with the same thought: _fuck that guy_. Final Fantasy VII was a great game but only because I was not living in it. Midgar's slums were awful and just down right dirty. The lack of a sky made me forget what the sun and starts looked like. Sometimes, I thought about escaping to the surface and going to some remote village by the ocean. But my baseball bat isn't enough to save me from roaming monsters and I owed my new parent for taking care of me. If he had not killed me, I would have had my Bachelors in Bio Chemistry and it would be collecting dust in a corner because what do people even use diplomas for?

I honestly did not even know I was in my old video game until I was about two years old and my father, Jean Thorne, mentioned President Shinra to a guest he had over. I dropped my sippy cup in shock and despite being mentally twenty two, I really did feel like a baby. Hopeless and helpless. I wasn't given some task or told I was some important factor for the Planet's future. I was hit by a drunk driver and then found myself as a baby in a stranger's arms without a notification or an explanation. Which was why I screamed at the top of my lungs and refused to shut up for an hour. I was basically on my own in a place I haven't seen on a television screen for ten years. I could no longer see my mother and sister again. The thought made me miserable as a child and it confused Jean because I never smiled when he made a funny face or cried when I was hungry. At one point, I had just given up. I probably would have died from refusing to drink or eat but if you think about it, I've been technically dead for a decade and a half.

"Are you going to stay up there forever?" A gentle voice startled me out of my thoughts and I looked down to see amused, green eyes.

However, being born in the slums of Sector 5 gave me an advantage (but also a disadvantage): Aerith Gainsborough. As I grew up in Midgar, I spent the first year of my life whining and moaning about my predicament as much as I could in baby talk. For another three years, I realized that crying over my death and missing my family was not going to help me in the slightest. Being raised by a single father meant that he was not around much—he ran a small soup restaurant in Sector 3—and it gave me a chance to plan and think. What purpose did I have here and why was I born in Midgar specifically? I was no way in hell joining AVALANCHE or even SOLDIER. But maybe I could save a lot of lives from Meteor. Befriending Aerith was probably a mistake in trying to avoid conflict but it was hard not to like her when she constantly gave me free flowers and stuck them in my wild curls that fell into my face. When we first met, she told me I had this permanent sadness within my eyes and I honestly didn't know how to respond to that. Maybe that was why she kept trying to make me smile.

"I like the breeze up here." I answered her with a lazy grin.

We were both fifteen now and I was ashamed to admit that I was avoiding Aerith. I knew that she would be meeting Zack soon and deep down, I really did not want to be there. I was scared. I was frightened. Watching them die on screen was different than seeing them die in front of me. If I faced Zack now, despite fifteen years of putting up emotional walls, I would probably break down and sob into Aerith's arms without hesitating. Knowing the fate of every person around you was not easy and I often hoped that someone would remove my memories. It would certainly make the grieving process easier.

"Because it makes your scarf flutter dramatically?" She teased and climbed up to the ledge with ease despite her dress. We were near her church after she finished attempting to sell her flowers in Sector 8. I was usually in charge of cheering her up after an unsuccessful day. The scarf she was referring to was the long blue one secured around my neck that basically covered the lower half of my face. Aerith's mother, Elmyra, knitted it for me years ago and I cherished it ever since. It perfectly fit with my leather jacket, which made me feel like the badass I wasn't.

"You caught me red handed." I drawled and ruffled her hair once she stood beside me. I could see the question in her eyes and on the tip of her tongue about my distant nature. I had already prepared for this conversation with at least thirty answers to keep her satisfied.

"Will you take me to the ocean one day?" Though, I wasn't prepared for that and I was left speechless for a couple of seconds.

"The ocean?" I echoed dumbly and stared at her blankly.

"You always talked about going up above and seeing the stars." She said simply as she rocked back and forth with her hands clasped behind her back. "I heard it was best to see them when at the beach."

I looked down at my feet and rubbed the back of my neck, "I thought you were scared of the sky." I knew that her Cetra heritage made enjoying nature—besides flowers—hard for her. I often avoided talking about going to the Plate in her presence because I would see the fear in her eyes. But I usually ran my mouth without control.

"If I'm with you, I'll be fine." Aerith shrugged and then sat down. From years of knowing her, I knew there was something that she was hiding and I crouched down low to make eye contact.

"Is something wrong?" I raised an eyebrow as a way to tell her that lying to me was not an option.

She sighed and bowed her head, "those people in blue came to find me again."

"Don't tell me you want to leave Midgar." I said flatly and she slapped my bicep. I pouted slightly as I rubbed it. She didn't have to hit me so hard.

"I can't abandon my church and mother," she scolded and wagged her finger for good measure. "but I _would_ like to escape for a little while."

"And going to the ocean because of what I said in passing weeks ago is a good idea?" I sighed and rubbed my face. I wished I knew what Aerith was thinking. It was obvious when she had a text bubble and lived inside my screen but here she was in front of me as a real person. It was surreal. "They'll easily get to us before we can even reach the Plate. Midgar is still under construction but—"

I was caught off by the sound of someone falling through the roof of Aerith's church. She quickly scrambled to her feet and climbed down to see what happened while I sat there shaking. My brown skin was several shades lighter and a sweat built up at my brow. Zack was _here_. I shook my head repeatedly and made a mad dash back to my house. I didn't want to see him. I couldn't see him. I refused to. When I reached our barely standing hut, I slammed the door behind me and slid down to my knees. Dad wasn't so home, so I could afford to do a panic attack or two. I sighed softly and ran a hand through my disheveled hair. I did not expect for Zack to appear while I was with Aerith. She was actually supposed to be already be in the church when he fell. Did I accidentally change something? I quickly moved to my room and grabbed the small notebook beneath my bed. It was where I kept all my information on the timeline of significant events. If Zack and Aerith had just met each other than that meant Angeal and Genesis have had already defected and the War is over. But there were still stories of people being drafted and the posters of Sephiroth were not taken down. Something wasn't right. Did I get something wrong?

A series of knocks caused me to drop my book, "open up!"

"Who is it?" I slowly grabbed my bat and tip toed to the door. If he continued to knock like that, then the door was surely going to break. Several times my dad accidentally pulled the thing off its hinges and he often joked that he was superhuman. If his eyes glowed, I would have had believed him.

"Mandatory enlistment." Those two words made my heart drop and I almost dropped my bat. Were they here for me?

"For who?" I croaked and opened the door slowly to reveal a man smoking a cigarette. I did not know his name but I knew that uniform; he was an infantryman.

"Jean Thorne?" He looked me up and down before he snorted loudly. "I expected an adult male."

"I'm—" I looked over my shoulder to see my dad walking towards us. We briefly made eye contact and I tilted my head. _Go. Run._ "Jean Thorne has been dead for years. I'm his daughter, Nora." _  
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"Then you'll do." He grunted and grabbed me by the arm. I debated whether I should whack him with my baseball bat and run for the hills but the nice, gleaming pistol in his holster made me rethink that twice. He didn't even seem to realize I had a weapon or he was confident that I wasn't going to use it. I was rather caught off guard at the fact that I was being drafted. It dawned on me like someone dumping a bucket of ice over my head. Since when were there women in Shinra's army? Turks were known for having females but they seemed to be nonexistent in the SOLDIER program in Crisis Core and Final Fantasy VII. I was thrown into a military truck and made note that there were four other people inside. It wasn't their lucky day, it seemed. The engine hummed and the truck slowly left town. I blinked back the tears as my dad came out of his hiding place and fell to his knees as he watched the truck disappear. I may have indirectly just saved his life. I rubbed my eyes and ignored the others that were staring at me. They were probably confused as to why someone as small as me was being drafted for War. I wouldn't last a day on the battlefield. I held my baseball bat close to my chest and if my head wasn't bowed in self pity, I would have seen Aerith waving her arms frantically and chasing after the truck.

I groaned when the truck eventually stopped and I was slammed face first into the wall. My lip was bleeding and my nose was sore as I climbed out. Lady Luck was on my side today and I profusely cursed her out in my mind.

"Welcome to your new home, Fresh Meat." The man who recruited me against my will stood next to me as I looked at the Shinra Headquarters in awe. It was bigger than I thought it would be.

"Glad to be here, sir." My voice cracked and he laughed loudly. He slapped my shoulder once and I stood there as all hope washed away through my pores and collapsed at my feet. It was as if from that sole slap, he stole my humanity from me.

He smirked and pushed me forward, "I'll give you a week, Fresh Meat. Try not to die."

I really hated that son of a bitch. I really did.


End file.
